Smuggled Dinosaur's Return May Boost Mongolian Paleontology

Below:

Next story in Science

When Mongolia’s most famous dinosaur, a relative of T.
rex, returns to the Asian country on May 18, it returns to a
homeland rich in dinosaur fossils, but with scant resources to
display and study them.

"We didn't have a single star who can be a representation of the
whole paleontological heritage that we have," Oyungerel
Tsedevdamba, Mongolia's minister of culture, sports and tourism,
told LiveScience at a repatriation ceremony for the fossil.
"That's why [the dinosaur] became like a hero that fascinates
everyone and just awakened the Mongolian public to learn more
about paleontological heritage of the country." [ Tarbosaurus:
See Images of the Celebrity Dinosaur ]

When the dinosaur arrives on Saturday (May 18), the new national
Dinosaur Day, it will return to a country with no dedicated
dinosaur museum, only three doctorate-level paleontologists, and
no university-level courses in paleontology. However, Mongolian
officials have plans to change all of this.

Unrecognized national treasures

A landlocked nation situated between China and Russia, Mongolia
is slightly smaller than the state of Alaska, and is home to 3.2
million people. In 1990, the country left behind its communist
Soviet system for democracy and a free market.

A number of factors — including the prolongedeconomic depression
following this transition, little access to English in the past,
a publishing industry that was nonexistent until recently, a
shortage of paleontologists, and cultural attitudes toward bones
and the dead —have inhibited the Mongolian public's interest in
the country's fossil heritage, Oyungerel told LiveScience.

In recent years, mining has spurred economic growth in Mongolia,
and more Mongolians are learning English. As a direct result of
the Tarbosaurus case, plans are underway to establish
the country's
first dedicated dinosaur museum, the Central Museum of
Mongolian Dinosaurs, and to train the paleontologists needed to
staff it and study the nation's fossils.

Currently, one museum in Mongolia, the national natural history
museum, displays dinosaur fossils. But this museum's building is
old and at risk of collapsing, Oyungerel said.

In need of a new generation

While many foreign paleontologists come to Mongolia to work, the
country has only three doctorate-level, or full-fledged,
vertebrate paleontologists, who study the fossils of animals with
backbones, including dinosaurs.

One of the three paleontologists, the youngest and the only one
trained in the United States, Bolortsetseg Minjin, has been
tapped as assistant director of the new museum and its chief
paleontologist. The other two were trained by the Soviets, while
Mongolia was a communist country.

"We really need to work hard to have a young generation (of
paleontologists) as soon as possible," Bolortsetseg said.

The Mongolian government hopes to establish the dinosaur museum,
with
the Tarbosaurus as its first specimen, in an old
Lenin museum. This museum was established during communist times
to display art and artifacts related to the life of the Russian
revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. [ Image
Gallery: Amazing Dinosaur Fossils ]

However, ownershipof the former Lenin museum building is now tied
up in a court case. After the dinosaur arrives on May 18, the
country's new National Dinosaur Day, officials plan to house it
in a temporary exhibition hall in the main square of the capital
Ulaanbaatar, Oyungerelsaid.

The new museum will register all Mongolia dinosaurs, including
those sent abroad on loan.

More fossils and more museums

Mongolian law makes all fossils found within its borders state
property; U.S. officials seized
the Tarbosaurus from a Florida fossil hunter and
dealer, Eric Prokopi, charging that he smuggled it into the
United States.

At 8 feet tall (2.4 meters) and 24 feet long (7.3 meters) when
assembled, this juvenile Tarbosaurus bataar, requires
some space to display, but it isn't the only large dinosaur
heading back to Mongolia.

As part of the federal case, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office
and Homeland Security Investigations have seized additional
dinosaur fossils from Prokopi and a British dealer, Chris Moore.
These include other large dinosaurs, among them more
Tarbosauruses. Traveling dinosaur exhibitions in Europe
and Japan will add to the tally when they return to Mongolia,
Oyungerel said.

"Just one giant is enough to fill the biggest hall of any museum,
so we need to accommodate this list, like 20 giants, somewhere.
So we are envisioning a big Giants' House in the south of
Ulaanbaatar," Oyungerel said.

South Gobi province is also interested in establishing a museum
commemorating the expeditions by the paleontologist Roy Chapman
Andrews in the 1920s, and there is also discussion of a national
dinosaur park, she said.

Studying abroad

Mongolia has provided foreign paleontologists with a rich source
of fossils from
the Mesozoic Era (251 million to 65.5 million years ago), but
many would like to see more Mongolians studying the fossils
unearthed in their country.

When Jack Horner, curator of paleontology at the Museum of the
Rockies, first visited Mongolia about 20 years ago, he noticed
the absence of young Mongolian scientists.

"Even though Mongolia had some paleontologists they weren't
training anyone to replace them, and a lot of other institutions
were going in there and collecting fossils and bringing them out
and preparing them and publishing papers on them, and they also
were not preparing Mongolian students," Horner said.

He has since worked with Bolortsetseg to train Mongolian students
and to reach out to the public through a nonprofit she
established called The Institute for the Study of Mongolian
Dinosaurs. Bolortsetseg has plans to begin another
student-training program this summer, within another year, she
hopes to have two future Mongolian paleontologists ready to begin
graduate programs abroad. [ Science
Education: Top and Bottom States (Infographic) ]

No paleontology courses are currently available in Mongolian
universities, although there are plans for one to begin in 2014,
Oyungerel told LiveScience.

After a visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel
University on May 9, Bolortsetseg said she found it to be an
appealing place to send future Mongolian paleontology students.

Through a long-term project conducting environmental research at
the ancient Lake Khuvshulin Mongolia, the Academy has helped
produced 14 Mongolian doctorates and more than 20 master's
degrees for Mongolians.

Involving Mongolians, or any local people, in research based in
their country is a moral imperative, since the work is being done
on their property, Clyde Goulden, who initiated the Khuvhsul
project and serves as director of the Academy's Asia Center, told
LiveScience in an email. It also makes for better science by
deploying more researchers to explore and test hypotheses, he
wrote. "Who else can do a better job of that than the scientists
who live nearby and can continuously study and explore."